Prophecies the singular proof of the Bible’s divine inspiration

1) Growth of the Church – that the Church would grow and spread throughout the world rather than be extinguished.

a) – The Bible makes it clear that the Church would grow progressively throughout the Church age despite extreme persecution.

f) – Patristic writers have always interpreted the texts this way

g) – These texts were obviously written long before their fulfillment.

2) Preservation of the Jews – that the Jews as a self-identifying ethno-nation would continue to exist indefinitely.

a) Not only do numerous Bible passages predict this, but Jesus predicts that the Jews as a self-identifying ethno-religious group will be persecuted throughout history.

f) – Patristic writers have always interpreted the texts this way

g) – These texts were obviously written long before their fulfillment.

3) Destruction of Jerusalem – that the second Temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed by invading Romans.

a) – This is explicitly prophesied in the Book of Daniel

f) LXX translation of the book makes it clear that the Jews interpreted the identity of those who would destroy it as the Romans book this way (LXX of Dan. 11:30, where the term “Kittim,” used of the Romans, is employed).

g) – The LXX was extant around 2 B.C. It is therefore clear that the Jews believed that Dan. 9:24-27 referred to invading Romans destroying the Jerusalem Temple. Paul himself clear voices such an expectation of temporal judgments on the Jews (Rom. 9:27-29), which, given the then current political situation of the Jews, could have only had the Romans as its author in his mind.

The destruction of the Temple in Daniel 9:24-27 is explicitly related to a period of 3.5 years. This is the First Jewish Revolt between 66-70 A.D. Isaiah 53 specifies the “generation” of Jesus as the ones who reject him, and Paul prophesies the judgment on the Jews for their rejection. Keep in mind that this sense of imminence (Rom. 16:20; Phil. 4:5, cf. Jas. 5:8), along with the explicit prophecy in Rom. 9:27-29, is prevalent throughout Paul’s undisputed epistles, which are accepted even by secular scholars as having been written several decades before the destruction of the Temple. This language is reflected in the OT, and constitutes the background of Paul’s sense of imminence and expectation of judgment on the Jews of his day (Ps. 18:10-12, 68:4,33,34, Deut. 33:26; Isa. 19:1; Jer. 4:13, Nah. 1:3)

Jesus says the destruction of the Temple would happen in his generation. A generation is 40 years, which has theological significance with respect to its status as a probationary period prior to jugdment throughout the Bible, and is fulfilled with precision before the end of that generation. In fact, Paul identifies the Church of his time as an antitype of the wilderness generation (1 Cor. 10), and it is within such a context that he warns his audience that an epoch-changing event, the destruction of the Temple, is near (1 Cor. 7:29).

4) Rise of the Beast from the fallen Roman Empire –

f) – The ante-Nicene church writers expected the Beast who would persecute Christians to arise from the fallen Roman Empire. Andrew of Caesarea, St. Augustine and St. Gregory voice the possibility that the “Temple” in which the Beast would dwell was the Church itself, and Paul always refers to the Church, or the body of Christ, as a “Temple.”

g) – The ante-Nicene writers lived and wrote hundreds of years before the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the papacy from its ashes.

5) Heat waves – “The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and these were thrown upon the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up”(Rev. 8:7)

-Scientists have recently noted that thousands of heat records have been broken recently.

6) Plant and Animal Death – “A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.“(Rev. 8:9)

-Scientists have recently noted that an unprecedented extinction of plants and animals have begun.

7) Wars8) Plagues9) Famines

10) Unprecedented wealth

11) Unprecedented decadence – I believe that when Paul predicts the unprecedented decadence of later generations, this is fulfilled in our consumption of the abundance of products that produce more dopamine than any previous generation could have ever experienced. It is in terms of this excess of dopamine, a neurotransmitter whose function is extremely important in understanding addiction, that the idea that a generation being “more decadent” can be operationalized and defined. It is particularly manifested in behavioral traits resulting from (over-)consumption of such products such as euphoria-inducing foods such as sweets, as well as products such as pornography, which produces much more dopamine than humans would ever experience in the wild, even during sex.

Philosophical postulates concerning the divine nature and origin of the prophecies:

a) The prophecies are clear and specific rather than being vague.b) They are generally too remarkable to be explained away as self-fulfillling.c) Even those that might be explained away as self-fulfilling exhibit temporal coordination that is itself remarkable.d) This temporal coordination is itself remarkable and cannot be explained away as mere coincidence or self-fulfilling.e) The prophetic fulfillments are causally independent from one another so that one does not follow from the otherf) We know that these prophecies have always been interpreted in this way so we can’t be accused of reading current events back into it. In other words, the form of hindsight bias known as “postdiction” cannot be used against these prophecies.g) We know that many of these prophecies were written before their articulation, so its authors cannot be accused of vaticinium ex eventu.h) The inference to the best explanation is that the writers of the prophecies were inspired by an omniscient being.i) This follows from a foundherentist epistemology according to which empirical verification establishes a foundation which then determines what sorts of subsequent empirical data may count as knowledge or be true.